Series

Dinosaur Train

29 episodes

Buddy is a T. Rex raised by a Pteranodon family, and the train takes them anywhere in the age of dinosaurs. Two-minute clips make up most of the 29 entries: how horns and frills protected Triceratops, what a Castorocauda's beaver tail was for, predator and prey, fossils hiding in rock layers, Pangaea splitting into continents, an alphabet of dinosaurs from Apatosaurus to Zephyrosaurus. Full episodes run 24 to 27 minutes and often turn on family, whether that is how different dinosaur dads care for their young or Buddy realizing his mom was a kid once. Two movies run 53 and 85 minutes.

what this series covers

What Dinosaur Train covers

29 episodes in the library, tagged for Pre-K–4th. Heaviest coverage: Science, Social-Emotional Learning and Social Studies. Between them they line up with 14 distinct standards across 2 frameworks.

Episodes per grade

Pre-K: 21
K: 23
1st: 29
2nd: 17
3rd: 6
4th: 2

Episodes per subject

Science: 28
Social-Emotional Learning: 3
Social Studies: 1

NGSS (Science) 10

2-LS4-1Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats.
1-LS1-1Use materials to design a solution to a human problem by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.
1-ESS1-2Make observations at different times of year to relate the amount of daylight to the time of year.
3-LS4-1Analyze and interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of the organisms and the environments in which they lived long ago.
4-ESS1-1Identify evidence from patterns in rock formations and fossils in rock layers to support an explanation for changes in a landscape over time.
K-LS1-1Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.

+ 4 more

1-LS1-2Read texts and use media to determine patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive.
3-ESS3-1Make a claim about the merit of a design solution that reduces the impacts of a weather-related hazard.
3-LS4-3Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
K-ESS2-1Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time.